UGC Notes: Research Methodology and Aptitude

Types of Research - Definitions

Action research is a methodology that combines action and research to examine

specific questions, issues or phenomena through observation and reflection, and
deliberate intervention to improve practice.

Applied research is research undertaken to solve practical problems rather than

to acquire knowledge for knowledge sake.

Basic research is experimental and theoretical work undertaken to acquire new

knowledge without looking for long-term benefits other than the advancement of
knowledge.

Qualitative research is research undertaken to gain insights concerning attitudes,

beliefs, motivations and behaviours of individuals to explore a social or human
problem and include methods such as focus groups, in-depth interviews, observation
research and case studies.

Quantitative research is research concerned with the measurement of attitudes,

behaviours and perceptions and includes interviewing methods such as telephone,
intercept and door-to-door interviews as well as self-completion methods such as
mail outs and online surveys.

Three basic types of questions that research projects:

Descriptive: When a study is designed primarily to describe what is going on or

what exists. Public opinion polls that seek only to describe the proportion of people
who hold various opinions are primarily descriptive in nature. For instance, if we
want to know what percent of the population would vote for a BJP or Congress in the
next election, we are simply interested in describing something.

Relational: When a study is designed to look at the relationships between two or

more variables. A public opinion poll that compares what proportion of males and
females say they would vote for a BJP or Congress candidate in the next election is
essentially studying the relationship between gender and voting preference.

Causal: When a study is designed to determine whether one or more variables (e.g.,
a program or treatment variable) causes or affects one or more outcome variables. If
we did a public opinion poll to try to determine whether a recent political advertising
campaign changed voter preferences, we would essentially be studying whether the
campaign (cause) changed the proportion of voters who would vote BJP or Congress
(effect).

Time is an important element of any research design. The most fundamental

distinctions in research design nomenclature: cross-sectional versus longitudinal
studies. A cross-sectional study is one that takes place at a single point in time. In
effect, we are taking a 'slice' or cross-section of whatever it is we're observing or
measuring. A longitudinal study is one that takes place over time -- we have at least
two (and often more) waves of measurement in a longitudinal design.

A variable is any entity that can take on different values. Anything that can vary
can be considered a variable. For instance, age can be considered a variable because
age can take different values for different people or for the same person at different
times. Similarly, country can be considered a variable because a person's country
can be assigned a value.

There is a distinction between an independent and dependent variable. In fact

the independent variable is what you (or nature) manipulates -- a treatment or
program or cause. The dependent variable is what is affected by the independent
variable -- your effects or outcomes. For example, if you are studying the effects of
a new educational program on student achievement, the program is the independent
variable and your measures of achievement are the dependent ones.

A hypothesis is a specific statement of prediction. It describes in concrete (rather

than theoretical) terms what you expect will happen in your study. Not all studies
have hypotheses. Sometimes a study is designed to be exploratory.

UGC Notes: Research Methodology and Aptitude

Sampling: Sampling is the process of selecting units (e.g., people) from a

population of interest so that by studying the sample we may fairly generalize our
results back to the population from which they were chosen. A response is a specific
measurement value that a sampling unit supplies. If you measure the entire
population and calculate a value like a mean or average, it is called
parameter of the population. The distribution of an infinite number of
samples of the same size as the sample in your study is known as the
sampling distribution.

In sampling contexts, the standard error is called sampling error. Sampling error
gives us some idea of the precision of our statistical estimate. A low sampling error
means that we had relatively less variability or range in the sampling distribution.
How do we calculate sampling error? on the standard deviation of our sample. The
greater the sample standard deviation, the greater the standard error /the sampling
error. The standard error is also related to the sample size. The greater your sample
size, the smaller the standard error. Because the greater the sample size, the closer
your sample is to the actual population itself. If you take a sample that consists of
the entire population you actually have no sampling error because you don't have a
sample, you have the entire population. In that case, the mean you estimate is the
parameter.

Probability sampling method is any method of sampling that utilizes some form of
random selection such as picking a name out of a hat, or choosing the short straw.

The simplest form of random sampling is called simple random sampling. Simple
random sampling is simple to accomplish and is easy to explain to others. Because
simple random sampling is a fair way to select a sample, it is reasonable to
generalize the results from the sample back to the population. Simple random
sampling is not the most statistically efficient method of sampling and you may, just
because of the luck of the draw, not get good representation of subgroups in a
population.

Stratified Random Sampling, also sometimes called proportional or quota

random sampling, involves dividing your population into homogeneous
subgroups and then taking a simple random sample in each subgroup. It
 assures that you will be able to represent not only the overall population, but also
key subgroups of the population, especially small minority groups. Second, stratified
random sampling will generally have more statistical precision than simple random
sampling. This will only be true if the strata or groups are homogeneous.

The problem with random sampling methods when we have to sample a population
that's disbursed across a wide geographic region is that you will have to cover a lot
of ground geographically in order to get to each of the units you sampled. It is for
precisely this problem that cluster or area random sampling was invented. In cluster
sampling, we follow these steps:
1. divide population into clusters (usually along geographic boundaries)
2. randomly sample clusters
3. measure all units within sampled clusters

Non-probability sampling. The difference between nonprobability and probability

sampling is that nonprobability sampling does not involve random selection and
probability sampling does. We can divide nonprobability sampling methods into two
broad types: accidental or purposive. In accidental sampling, sample is chosen
accidently and we have no evidence that they are representative of the populations
we're interested in generalizing to and in many cases we would clearly suspect that
they are not. e.g. college students in some psychological survey. In purposive
sampling, we sample with a purpose in mind. We usually would have one or more
specific predefined groups we are seeking. For instance, have you ever run into
people in a mall or on the street who are carrying a clipboard and who are stopping
various people and asking if they could interview them? Most likely they are
conducting a purposive sample. Purposive sampling can be very useful for situations
where you need to reach a targeted sample quickly and where sampling for
proportionality is not the primary concern. With a purposive sample, you are likely to
get the opinions of your target population, but you are also likely to overweight
subgroups in your population that are more readily accessible.

One of purposive sampling is quota sampling. In quota sampling, you select people
non randomly according to some fixed quota. There are two types of quota sampling:
proportional and non proportional. In proportional quota sampling you want to
represent the major characteristics of the population by sampling a proportional
amount of each. e.g. getting 40% females from a population of say 1000.

Then there is snowball sampling. In snowball sampling, you begin by identifying

someone who meets the criteria for inclusion in your study. You then ask them to
recommend others who they may know who also meet the criteria.

Research Design

Research design provides the glue that holds the research project together. A design
is used to structure the research, to show how all of the major parts of the research
project the samples or groups, measures, treatments or programs, and methods of
assignment work together to try to address the central research questions. Design
can be either experimental or non-experimental.

Data analysis is the last part of the research. In most social research the data
analysis involves three major steps, done in roughly this order:

Cleaning and organizing the data for analysis (Data Preparation)

 Describing the data (Descriptive Statistics)
Testing Hypotheses and Models (Inferential Statistics)

Data Preparation involves checking or logging the data in; checking the data for
accuracy; entering the data into the computer; transforming the data; and
developing and documenting a database structure that integrates the various
measures.

Descriptive Statistics are used to describe the basic features of the data in a study.
They provide simple summaries about the sample and the measures. Together with
simple graphics analysis, they form the basis of virtually every quantitative analysis
of data. With descriptive statistics you are simply describing what is, what the data
shows.
Inferential Statistics investigate questions, models and hypotheses. In many cases,
the conclusions from inferential statistics extend beyond the immediate data alone.
For instance, we use inferential statistics to try to infer from the sample data what
the population thinks. Or, we use inferential statistics to make judgments of the
probability that an observed difference between groups is a dependable one or one
that might have happened by chance in this study. Thus, we use inferential statistics
to make inferences from our data to more general conditions; we use descriptive
statistics simply to describe what's going on in our data.